I’ve been thinking lately about all the great advances in medicine over the years. There have been lots of them. And despite everything you’ve heard about looming cuts in healthcare, I have no doubt that the hits will keep on coming. Since I seem to be on this Top 5 thing lately, I figured I would continue this ride and rank my top 10 medical advances over the years. There …
Linzess is a new drug that received FDA approval by Forest Laboratories for use in irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) with constipation and in chronic idiopathic constipation. It got my attention because of its biochemistry.
Learning about the mechanism of action of new drugs like Linzess reminds me how much more is understood about the molecular biological level of physiologic function of the human body than when I was in med school. Linzess …
You may have heard that veteran NBC News correspondent Tom Brokaw was hospitalized recently after he reported feeling lightheaded after making an appearance on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe.”
He’s fine. Brokaw tweeted, “All is well. Early a.m. I mistakenly took a half dose of Ambien and made less sense than usual.”
And that’s what you’ve got to be careful not to do.
Any time you get up in the wee hours of …
I’ve always had a tough relationship with cigarettes and the people who love them. As a lung doctor I hate cigarettes, and I hate that patients I see everyday continue to use them. But I also understand that vilifying smokers seems to be in vogue right now. I figure that if someone does something that is not considered socially palatable, and that does them harm, even as they strive to …
A recent economic analysis concluded that patients with metastatic cancer value their treatments significantly more than regulators recognize, with many expensive new therapies looking like veritable bargains to most patients. Yet the study ignored the values really driving oncology spending—the warped incentives oncologists have to promote their own bottom line by prescribing expensive treatments.
Let’s start with the economic analysis, another in a series of studies by a USC team of …
Everybody knows that some medications can cost a lot of money. I always try to take the cost to my patients into account when prescribing a medication- after all, if someone can’t afford it, they are not going to take it. When it’s appropriate (and 9 times out of 10 it is), I try to prescribe a generic medication. They are much cheaper and work just as well as the …
Now more than ever, the growing consensus among many is that doctors should avoid seeing pharmaceutical sales representatives, otherwise known as drug reps. A position statement from the AAMC, the head organization of all US medical schools and residency programs, recommends that all academic health centers avoid having drug reps on their campuses, hospital and clinics. Many medical institutions including the VA and Kaiser have also enacted similar policies banning …
I am not a huge baseball fan to begin with, and when I am, I root for the Nationals. Thus, I pay little attention to the New York Yankees, and was not aware that Yankee player Mark Teixeira had been suffering from a cough for the past month until it the story from the New York Times came through one of my Twitter feeds. According to the story: “Mark Teixeira had …
The FDA is deciding whether to allow patients to purchase prescription medications over the counter for many common ailments.
This idea is controversial.
On one hand, deregulation would remove one of the largest barriers to receiving treatment for some conditions – the doctor’s visit. If no doctor’s visit is necessary to receive necessary blood pressure medications or diabetes medications, then patients don’t have to wait for an appointment and the patient/government …
An excerpt from The Truth About Statins.
Like all physicians, I’ve had interactions with pharmaceutical companies. Shortly after I went into private practice in Rhode Island in 1977, I received a telephone call from a drug company representative. He offered me an all-expense-paid weeklong trip to Germany to attend a medical conference. I was taken aback, knowing that the cost of such a trip would run to thousands of dollars. I …
Today, I want to review another article I wrote in last year. That article started with a confession: “I confessed that I ate lunch with a representative of a pharmaceutical company.”
I must now confess that I often eat lunch with representatives of pharmaceutical companies and I’m proud of it. At this stage of my career, I can well afford my own lunch. I could sit quietly and relax over a cup …
Being a physician certainly biases how I view the world around me. I can’t help but think in terms of problem-solving and healing. But have you noticed how medicalized our society has become? The other night watching television, we watched at least four drug commercials and one health insurance commercial — during a half-hour show! I believe we are in the middle of the medicalization of America, and I don’t …
A young man on my sobriety-based detox program (only after showing positive for opiates) admitted to heroin-usage, but hedged the matter saying it was “5 days ago.” His implicit presumption was that an isolated episode, days ago — compared to continuous, more recent, heroin-usage — would lessen the likelihood of his getting kicked off the program.
Is his story of “no heroin [ingestion] in the last five days,” likely, the whole …
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We have to crush pills sometimes. Either the patient (through aversion or physical limitation from stroke) can’t swallow whole pills so we crush them and put them in applesauce, or the patient gets their pills through a tube, so we crush them and dissolve them in water.
When I started nursing, we had a mortar and pestle.
Anyway, this is what we used …
While diligently perusing a stack of unread journals, a piece in the July 25, 2011 issue of Modern Healthcare caught my attention.
Titled “What’s the Agenda?” this special report deftly navigated the murky waters of “physician participation on advisory boards” and managed to present an accurate appraisal of the issues.
Here is a brief recap.
Back in the days before “medical ethics” issues were commonplace, pharmaceutical and medical device manufacturers were accustomed …
Do you, or many of your patients, have a little more belly fat around your and their middle than you and they would like? Me, too.
Turns out that there are two decent published studies from reputable places that report that a person may rub a cream on their skin over the fat spots and make the fat go away.
Wow, what a deal.
The first study addresses fat thighs, with each …
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We certainly wish that antidepressants in particular, and all psychiatric medications in particular were free of side-effects. It would be a boon to our patients, and their families. Sadly, there is no such thing as a medication without any risk of side-effects. Even over-the-counter medications such as Tylenol, Benadryl an aspirin can have pretty serious side-effects.
Some side-effects of medications are related to dose — the higher the dose, the …
Walgreens is being sued by customers who are not happy that their prescription information – even though it has been de-identified – is being sold by Walgreens to data-mining companies.
The data privacy and security concerns surrounding the transfer of de-identified data are significant. To “de-identify” what is otherwise protected health information under HIPAA, some outfits will simply strip data of 18 types of identifiers listed in federal …
Embryonic stem cells are present after a fertilized egg divides for two or three days. They have the seemingly miraculous ability to turn into any of the tissue types in the body—whether brain neurons, beating heart cells, bone, or pancreatic islet cells. It is important to understand just where these cells come from.
Those used in science are …
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Having a healthy level of respect for opioids is critical for any physician. For those of us who prescribe or recommend this class of medicines on a daily basis, this statement rings all the more true.Recent events and research reinforce this reality.
“Oxycontin, Other Opioid Painkillers Tied to Higher Health Risks” was the title of a recent BusinessWeek article …
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